But Foss receives a troubling letter prior to the banquet as Griffith falls to the floor after receiving a poisoned drink. Guts awakens from a nightmare of Casca being burned at the stake as a witch, seeing the Demon Child as it warns him that its mother is in danger. A few years later, an older Guts attracts the attention of a mercenary group, The Band of the Hawk, when he kills the knight Bazuso during a siege. After defeating a power guardian solo, Griffith and his Band of Hawks catches glimpses of Guts and long story short, after a battle Guts is inducted into the Hawks.

The Japanese volumes were re-released with new cover art starting in 2016, following the rebranding of Hakusensha's Jets Comics imprint as Young Animal Comics. It's also very thought provoking and delves into the minds self-conscious with all of its characters.These three volumes are straight-up foreshadowing later events of the story and it's amazing how smooth and right the dialogue between characters feels. Nina breaks down before seeing Luca, who disciplines her before forgiving her, and then learns that Casca followed her. Joachim gradually engages until learning that the pagans are cannibals and tries to flee, falling off a cliff. In 2002, Kentaro Miura received the second place in the Tezuka Osamu ( Astro Boy) Cultural Prize of Excellence for Berserk.

Accepting a ride from an old priest named Adolf, Guts experiences a nightmare and wakes up to an attack by spiritually-possessed skeletons, which kill Adolf and his daughter Colette. After being captured, Guts is interrogated by the Holy Iron Chain Knights' commander Farnese over the demise of the Band of the Hawk. This volume is a bit less focused on action and combat (although there is plenty of that) and a bit more on the characters and the relationships between them, in particular the one between Guts and Griffith.Corkus attempts to rob Guts before he is saved by the Hawks' female captain Casca, who is in turned saved by their leader Griffith as he grievously wounds Guts. But Griffith's Behelit prevents the poisoned arrow from touching his skin, Griffith tasking Guts with murdering Julius.

At nightfall, as the Demon Child saves Casca from spiritually-animated corpses near the bank that Nina is fetching water from, Guts encounters the Skull Knight who reveals the God Hand are using St. Back in the Tower of Conviction, Guts arrives faces Mozgus' winged subordinate as he and the Twins fly off with Casca.

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Guts then sees a newly reconstituted Griffith, yet could not attack him due to Casca while the others use the Apostle's appearance to flee as a Kushan legion arrives. Griffith rapes Casca in front of Guts as the latter loses his left arm and right eye in an attempt to save her, the two sprited back to their plane by the Skull Knight. After the Egg flees the Skull Knight with only a mortal wound inflicted on him, the Skull Knight takes Luca to safety as the living mounds of starved corpses rise up. Guts hears Griffith tell Charlotte his ideals of what he considers a friend, Guts realizing Griffith does not consider him and the others as friends.

This volume is somewhat surprisingly an origin story, that lasts the entire width of this hardcover. Since the late 2000s, the manga has been published irregularly, with frequent hiatuses until Miura's death in 2021.